A Cold Bargain
1354 Words
Laughing bubbled around the golden ballroom as the champagne flutes delicately clinked. The audience was golden glowed by crystal chandeliers, which also created crisp reflections on the polished marble flooring. The air smelt of luxury perfume, aged whisky, riches, and the slight metallic scent of power moving hands.
In the middle of it all, Lois Frazer stood, her fingers softly encircling Steve's arm, her smile deliberately created, her breath prepared.
Her life at the moment was this.
The silk gown, a midnight blue masterpiece more than her flat lease would have paid, embraced her figure. She had strange, weighty diamonds on her ears. Though everything about her screamed affluence, she had never felt more like an outsider.
Steve, always the mystery, performed brilliantly. Here, a nod, a solid handshake, simple control. He was untouchable, inscrutable, and simply his presence commanded the room.
He said, "Smile," lips hardly moving.
Lois drove one, without looking at the ice under his words.
A woman in emerald-green walked forward, her eye fixed on Steve. She purred and extended a manicured hand to Mr. Reynolds. And this must be your wonderful wife.
Huswife. The word crawled uneasily across Lois's chest.
Steve tightened his hold on her waist. "Lois, see Evelyn Carter. She owns Lacey Enterprises on a board level.
Lois held out a hand. Evelyn hardly looked at it before turning back to Steve.
"Interesting choice," Evelyn said. She is rather different from your regular kind.
The spine of Lois became rigid.
Steve's grin was steady. "I have always valued the unanticipated.”
The discussion changed to include mergers and contracts drowning out the music. Lois let her imagination stray till she felt it.
An eye-fix.
Someone watched her somewhere in the room.
Her heart thumping, she turned gently. One caught out among the sea of faces.
An man.
tall with dark hair, familiar. His eyes locked with hers, and a slow, knowing smile curved his lips.
The throat of Lois dried out.
She was acquainted with him.
Learn what he was capable of.
And from the glance in his eyes, he had not forgotten her either.
Though her pulse beat, Lois stayed still. Could not.
The man across the room fixed her unflinching attention, as though challenging her to pay him any respect. Though shadows played games on his features, she could not identify him with light.
She was aware of those eyes.
A cold slink descended her spine. He was doing what exactly here? After all these years?
She turned her eyes away and swallowed fiercely. Her fingers quitched at Steve's sleeve, a subtle tremble betraying her composure.
"Something wrong?" Steve's voice was low, calm, but his hold on her waist tightened.
Lois let out a tight breath. " Nothing."
Lies. In this world of sharp suits and sharper tongues, she had neither time for panic or space for past ghosts. She went back to Steve, pasting a smile she cannot see.
Steve examined her; his face was insensible. Then he followed her glance, as though he sensed the change in the air.
The stranger was no more here.
Steve's fingers gently twisted just so on her waist. "Do not let anyone see through you if you wish to keep this act intact."
Lois matched his stare, the warning obvious.
He noticed.
She had not even understood she had let her disguise fall off.
A waiter went by carrying champagne. More for something to grip than the liquid itself, Lois picked a glass. Her head was elsewhere while the discussion about them hummed on.
Her past entered the room just now.
It was not leaving silently either.
The ballroom blurted around Lois, the faces, the voices, the music, all of which faded to still. The one thing unambiguous, vivid, distinct was his presence.
The past seemed to slink in her least expected direction.
Turning, Lois looked around the space. He missed there. Not at all visible to me. Had she thought of it?
Not a number. She understood what she had seen.
She felt chilly curling in her stomach. She ought to share this with Steve. Tell him so. She hesitated, though, at the thought of owning a past that would wreck everything.
Her phone moved against her palm.
Looking down, Lois read the message while fingers tightened around the gadget.
Your history cannot be totally escaped.
Her breath came stopped.
A sluggish, crawling dread curled around her ribcage tightened, choking.
She raised her head and once more surveyed the ballroom, but nobody turned to look at her. Nobody seemed to be out of line. Still, the message charred her vision.
Turning, Lois caught Steve in mid-sentence. He felt her look before he noticed it. His eyes shot to hers, keen, evaluating.
He sensed a flaw in something.
The penthouse remained silent. not silent, not calm.
Steve had hardly said since they got back from the event. He pulled his tie one strong tug, then vanished into his office. Not a glance or a thank-you. Simply icy detachment, as though she were only a business plan.
Slowly breathed, Lois kicked her heels off. Fake grins, cautious words, the weight of a character she hadn't yet perfected had made the evening draining. She was a puppet on a string, dancing to Steve Reynolds's silent song, every movement controlled by his unwritten guidelines.
She hesitated before softly knocking as she padded towards the office door.
Not responded.
Her fingers came together in a fist. Right enough. In her own life she was not a ghost. She opening the door pushed forward.
Steve skimming through papers at his desk sat head bent. With sleeves pushed up to show his forearms, his suit jacket hung over the chair. He turned his back on looking.
Lois opened her arms. Are we going to discuss this?
Nothing, still.
Her patience faltered. " Steve.
At last he turned to stare up, irritation flaring across his face. "What?," asked.
Lois moved closer, sensing the weight of his stare as it passed over her like she was only another element of the décor. She pointed vaguely between them, "this is unbearable." We share a house right now. You could at least behave as I do.
Steve sat back in his chair and let out a noseful. "What do you anticipate, Lois? Candlelit dinners? Pillow discussion?
Her teeth closed tightly. "I am expecting simple human connection."
One muscle in his jaw tickled. He stood and gently, deliberately moved towards her. "Let me clear this for you." His voice was calm and deadly. "This is simply business, Lois." Nothing more is what I mean here.
She fixed him, a sinking sensation wriggling in her abdomen. He meant this. Every phrase.
Steve turned aside, writing her off.
Lois gulped the soreness in her throat.
She stood by herself. In every conceivable manner.
The penthouse halls carried the faint hum of voices.
Lois stopped at the top of the stairway, drawn to Steve's low tone. She hesitated then stepped carefully forward, rubbing her back against the cool marble wall.
You're confident? Steve spoke with a strong, under control voice.
"Yes." The second voice was not familiar. Lacey has been moving lately. He is compiling material and getting in touch with former colleagues.
Lois's tummy contracted.
Steve sighed with a worn-out sound. "He never knows when to stop.”
"This time he's closer than you could possibly imagine."
Silence as a pulse. Steve's voice then became darker. I will then take care of it.
Quietly inhaled, Lois felt her pulse beating. Charlie Lacey, just the name made her shudder. She had heard it once already. During the Celebrattion. in subdued exchanges. In the way Steve's demeanour become stiffer upon mentioning the individual.
truly, who was he? And what was his desire?
Though Lois retreated carefully, the floor creaked under her weight.
Silence is...
She turned fast, towards the bedroom, before she was discovered listening.
Her phone vibrated in her hands as she stretched for the door doorknob.
Lois halted.
An additional note. No name; simply a number she couldn identify.
She released it.
Lacey is watching over you. He is knowledge-based.
- Writer
